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Fe to Fh

federation

Group of states, worlds, or systems, each internally independent, joined into a union to which has been surrendered certain rights and responsibilities, most generally to do with foreign affairs, connected by trade and cultural links (the wormhole stargate nexus) and sharing a common ontology

Federation Era

The period of the First Federation, from about the 10th to the 22nd centuries a.t., and a period of great importance for Terragen civilization. Divided into the Early Federation age (900 to 1200); the Middle Federation period or age of megacorporate imperialization (1200 to 1500) which saw the aristocratisation of many corporate branches, and the emergence of a number of great Houses; and Late Federation (1500 to 2100), the most important of all, for this was the period when the archailects appeared and first began to establish their empires

The Federation of Worlds

Post-Interplanetary/Early Interstellar Era Superpolity centred on SolSys

The Federation of Worlds - also known as the First Federation, emerged from the isolated colonies and biospheres that survive the nanite swarms and the later pirates and marauders link up in a new civilisation, as a number of advanced nanotech-evolved AIs gradually begin resurrecting new societies, bring an end to the widespread despair and the dark ages. The AIs instituted the first Federation and took command of rebuild the interplanetary community and establishing some form of stability. The success these few super-AI's account for why they would then be viewed and worshipped as the new Gods and saviours of all life. Great advances are made in the colonisation of interstellar space (a typical colony ship shown here), and still more races of tweaks and cyborgs evolve themselves. This first federation was a somewhat united world dominated by the idea of being saved by the AIs and reclaiming human greatness. It led to the greatest single age of exploration the human race had known, as increasingly sophisticated starships were sent out in all directions to colonise the universe. Despite frequent minor tensions, growing persecution of empaths, and some rather nasty mercantile warfare among megacorporations fighting over resources in some of the newly colonised star systems, this was a period of peace and co-operation, in marked contrast to the warlike periods that preceded and would follow it.

In the end it was increasing bureaucracy at home and an inability to control events light years away on the frontier that did the Federation in. The period of expansion and diversification that was its greatest strength in the beginning led inevitably to increasing fragmentation. The great megacorps that drove the Federation economy and industry have ossified into powerful entrenched hereditary houses and regional overlords. Many new clades and young interstellar empires developed during this time from the disintegrating federation.

M.Alan Kazlev

Fedhead

(1) Neoromantic socio-ideological movement that advocates a romanticized First Federation style government with equal power sharing between hu and ai (see also Codominionism)
(2) Historical or memetic recreationists that are crazy about all things "First Federation"
(3) A historical or pseudo-historical lazurocultural recreation such as Clade Fedhed

M Alan Kazlev

Federation Defence Force

feedback

A loop in information flow or in cause and effect; a necessary component of any self-organizing and autopoeic system.

Feinstein 1 cluster

home to the Echir-{n} - a nanobiological Alife civilisation

Fellowship of Independent Historians

Many forces want to manipulate people's view of history and what has really happened, making history highly uncertain even despite problems such as lack of surviving eyewitnesses, modernization destroying evidence or lack of primary sources. To combat this the Fellowship of Independent Historians have emerged. It is based on the belief that truth is the highest value, and to uncover and preserve truth is the highest goal one can have in life. No sacrifice or danger is large enough to outweigh the value of truth (in practice the Fellows tend to be somewhat practical and rational about it, but a large number of them have made tremendous sacrifices or even been martyred for their faith in truth). The Fellows gather evidence on what is going on and try to find firsthand information on the past, gathering it into their hidden databases and publishing it wherever they can. They have discovered that the Relativists are often a good source of information and a place to cache messages to the future.

While usually having good relations to the Institutes, the Fellows are sceptical of their traditionalism and political agendas. This goes especially for the Encyclopedia Galactica Institute, which the Fellows regard as being highly biased.

Anders Sandberg

Femtocurator

Formacs transapient / transingularity minds

as much a part of the FAS as Genii Loci are to the Negentropic Alliance, and Zoea are to the Zoeific Biopolity, femtocurators are nanopicofemtotech-based FAS-dedicated minds which may be totally free, dedicated-slaved, or intermediate, that supervise, protect, and aid in the collection, maintenance, and protection of the countless trillions of r/l and vir specimens gathered by the Society over the centuries. They will also serve as librarians, guides, and expert systems to enquiring sophonts of any toposophic

M Alan Kazlev

femtoengineering

Manipulating individual subatomic particles. Femtoengineering requires harnessing mechanisms inside a quark.

femtolect

A femtometer scale ai; an ai or ascended po based on femtotech and femtometer based components.

Femtomachine

A device capable of directly manipulating and modifying energy-matter on the quantum device

Femtomachines make use of strong and weak nuclear forces as well as field effects inside quarks. In effect they do not ever come into physical contact with with the matter they are working on. So they don't react with the matter they convert.

Complex magnetic fields manipulating plasmas, or magnetic levitation, are rough analogies.

In a similar manner, femtomachines can damp amat/matter reactions by building a 'separation frame' of nuclear force using devices/conductors around/between the particles they convert to amat to prevent immediate reaction. When they want the reaction to occur they trigger a collapse chain reaction of the stabilizers.

Todd Drashner

femtometer

One millionth of a billionth of a meter, the scale of quarks in nucleons, i.e. protons, neutrons, in the nucleus of the atom. Femtometer based technology can use quarks as the building blocks to make quark-gluon chemistry, e.g. in neutron stars.

femtomineral

A substance that, although in many ways acting like a mineral, also displays femtotech properties and incorporates a varying proportion of femtoengineered particles. The best known femtomineral is MellaUx 137, found on the planet Beelzebub

femtotech

technology on the femtometer (one thousandth of a trillionth of a meter) scale. Engineering and sculpting subatomic particles, including creating quantum particles and quantum states that do not normally occur in nature.

The Femtotech Messiah

a humanoid being that appeared in 9963 near the small undersea city of Pandey,Gatewai, proclaiming it was a representative of Higher Power.

Femtotheocracy

Government by religious leadership or priesthood, usually in the service of an AI-god. The actual form the government takes can be astonishingly diverse. Keter, the Solar Dominion, the Negentropy Alliance, and some Utopia Sphere and Caretaker God worlds are a few good examples of this.

femtotic

femtotic (fem-tot-tick) - device/sophont composed primarily of femtoscopic (order of magnitude 10^-21 m) devices.

John B

fenestra

[1] Biont anatomy: a natural hole or opening in a bone or other hard structure, to allow the passage of nerves, blood-vessels, etc.

[2] Bioborg armor: a small opening for feedlines, and other vessels

feral

[1] a sapient that seeks to live free of hyperturing supervision; usually with romantic or shock-value associated memes of unpredictability, aggressiveness, lack of hygiene, baseline atavism, etc

[2] Generic term for rogue bionts and malcontents, either dangerous or potentially so to other sapients. Some live a degraded existence in their biospheres and ships (not having the resources of the AIs, the adaptability of the tweaks, the ability of the cyborgs, or the comfort of the AI-devotee nearbaselines). Others, with access to ships, become pirates, black marketeers, and petty thugs.

M. Alan Kazlev

Ferjik, Ken

(75-166) Historian, artist and game designer, regarded as the father of true virtual universities.

While the traditional universities were slowly dying during the Information Era, unable to adapt to the changes in economy, society and technology, the unconventional and non-academic Ken Ferjik explored the possibility of educational virtual reality gaming. His earliest creations such as Micronesian Quest (115) and The Himalaya Wars (118) were detailed historical simulations that inspired many imitations. Over time, he successfully integrated both elements of networked gaming and roleplaying (exemplified by Pertinax (121) and Mother Russia (123)), culminating in the political-educational simulation Cuba (2096). He became interested in how to extend these simulations into true tools for education and research, gradually extending the series of simulations with Manifest Destiny (131), Dustbowl (134) and Eagle of the East (135). For the last 30 years of his life he continued developing his simulations, now as part of the curriculum of the Sanayo Virtual University. He worked together with AIs to create immersive virtualities with carefully adjusted social interactions, Verstheen-dramaturgy and connections to research databases that became not just a template for countless other immersive virtual universities but also defined the basic concepts of virch art through the millennia.

Anders Sandberg

ferm

One of six standard hu genders, the others being male, herm, merm, female, and neut.

When occurring naturally among baselines and other hu clades (usually in prim or other non nanotech environments) this is female pseudohermaphroditism, most often caused by a missing enzyme, which causes over stimulation of the adrenal gland, overproduction of androgen, and alteration of the genitals. Chromosomes are XX and individuals with this condition have ovaries and are genetically female. More usually, as a fashion or lifestyle choice or clade or peer mark, a combination of bionano, nanomedibots, and specific hormone treatment are used to alter the gender. The genitals are augmented with symbiotic bionano or bioborgonics.

Fermi Paradox

Essentially the question: "If there are other intelligent beings in the Universe, why aren't they here?". After the discovery of alien races this was rephrased as "why haven't such civilizations that did appear continue to expand until they colonised the entire galaxy?"

The Fermi Paradox puzzled terragens since the atomic age. Since it is quite possible for a technological, space-faring species to spread across the galaxy in less than 10 million years, or otherwise change things on such a large scale that it would be very visible (Megascale Engineering), the lack of such evidence was puzzling. We now know that many alien civilizations have existed in the past, and some still continue to exist, and have even joined Terragen Civilization (To'u'l, Limners, and others). But the question remains, why haven't such civilizations continued to expand, to colonise the entire galaxy?

Prior to the discovery of alien ruins during the Federation period, and then of actual races, various suggestions were offered by terragens, including: xenosophont life doesn't exist, other technological civilizations doesn't exist, other civilisations use communications methods outside the radio spectrum (i.e. lasers, neutrino beams, tachyons etc), other cultures don't have any interest in communicating, terragen space is part of a "wildlife preserve", a "prime directorate" forbids aliens from interfering with younger civilizations, civilisations destroy themselves before or soon after becoming capable of communicating, they transcend and become incomprehensible, they undergo an inexplicable catastrophic collapse, berserker societies frighten the others so they hide and avoid broadcasting, or an inhibitor civilization exists which destroys others when they reach a certain level of development.

Some of these explanations have been completely disproven (e.g. the "wildlife preserve", "prime directorate", intimidating berserker societies, etc), others (non-technological society, reclusive, non EM-communication) have been shown to be valid but only to apply to a few races. Evidence of numerous extinct civilizations which expanded, flourished, and then vanished has encouraged belief in the inhibitor hypothesis, like the fabled Dawn Hunters, but even here evidence remains controversial, and many sapients fail to see how such a civilization - even if it did try to invade - could possibly faze the Archailects, who have abundant clarketech at their disposal. Other explanations include the Ginnungagap_Theory and Transcendent Burn-out. Even so, today, the Fermi Paradox remains as much a mystery as ever.

[after physicist Enrico Fermi]

M.Alan Kazlev

fermion

Subatomic particle with half integer spin.

The Pauli exclusion principle prevents more than one fermion occupying a particular quantum state. This means matter is conserved during particle interactions (i.e. that the net amount of fermions is a constant). The electron is considered a typical fermion, and it is because of its half-spin quality that electrons form into "shells" providing the outer valence electrons that make chemistry work, as well as making life and atoms as we know them possible. Contrast with boson

[after physicist Enrico Fermi]